Buyer's Question: Is a Prusa (mini) the right choice?
Hello Guys,
probably it's stupid to ask my question in the offical forum but i'm thinking about buying a Prusa (mini).
My situation is as followed: I own an anycubic mega s and have little printing experience, mostly on PLA. I want to print PETG and the Anycubic is a pain in the..... with every PETG-filament I tried by now. I spend hours and hours on tinkering, buying upgrades and tuning Cura. Still there are litterly no satisfying result.
My profile is not to uncommon (as i think). I like making stuff and work around my house a lot. I bought a 3D-printer to build a MPCNC (did that already) and now the printer comes (better: would come) handy to print out some "toys" for my workshop, jigs, little helpers. I'm sure you know what i mean. All this is done on a "OK"-Level with PLA by now.
What i need is a printer that is handy, has some pre-tuned filaments and is reliable (in function and decent results). I don't want a printer as a hobby, but as a tool (of course it needs some maintancence from time to time). I want to be creative with the machine and not spend my weekends on tinkering on a printer. I don't print sculptures and vases. I don't print mini-figures or something alike.
Please be so kind to give me your honest oppinion. Can a Prusa give that to me? Is the mini suitable for that (the size is absolutely ok for me)? Or will i have to go for the big one?
Regards
Philipp
RE: Buyer's Question: Is a Prusa (mini) the right choice?
I bought one for the exact same reasons as you are considering. I have had good results with PETG on hand built printers but I was hoping for something a bit better. I had seeral great prints with the mini after numerous 1st layer calibrations. I switched filaments to something other than Prusa and ...after 24 hours, have not been able to get it to print well at all. I have spent the last 10 hours on getting a good first layer. Honestly, if I can get it to print as it did out of the box, it may be worth it. I have a small farm running with eight printers and this is number nine... I am normally good at troubleshooting but I am at a loss. Definitely not what I was expecting as this was the "built" version.
I would not recommend this machine for a beginner. Perhaps I got a lemon? When mine arrived one of the screws was too short to reach the and the y axis was not assembled. lol. Not a big deal but not what I was expecting. Good luck.
RE: Buyer's Question: Is a Prusa (mini) the right choice?
I guess I’m coming from the other direction. All my minis worked out of the box. I just found the extruder to be a bit finicky and replaced it with a triangle labs (Bondtech clone) extruder. Great results with any filament I’ve thrown at the mini, with the zception of TPU. The 4x4 mesh bed leveling works great. Just like its big brother you have to get live z right. In my view it’s a greet machine for a beginner. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another one.
RE: Buyer's Question: Is a Prusa (mini) the right choice?
A prusa printer should be better(then the cheap ones), with updates from prusa, and updates firmware, they do a lot, and the slicer settings get change if needed with the firmware updates, and the prusa slicer get a lot of newer settings with every new update. prusa has updates for hardware, after a certain time you can buy updates, normally you can print the parts and buy the electronics, but a hardware update is only if you want to do this, if your printer is working OK , you could do nothing.
I have a mk3 and this works almost without fiddling with settings, but you will need to now some settings, because filament could be different by companies, and of course you could have a bad roll of filament.(and never buy cheap filament, if a roll gives clogs, it's a lot of work to get it going again).
And 3d printing will never be like stl in printer, and start the printer, and no looking after the printer.
With bad filament you could have clogs, could be partial clog, this you can not notice , and printing will not work good.
Reading this forum you see a lot of problems, and you can learn from this.
Most important is :
1. Clean bed.
2. First layer should be 100% adjusted.
Both settings are for good sticking to bed, to avoid spaghetti on the bed, and to get a good model.
With prusa, use the best bed(with mk3 you can choose 3 different bed) for your filament to get the best sticking.
Cleaning bed, use dish soap, this cleans the best. Use a lot of hot water, and do this a few times. A few print you can use alcohol, but dish soap is the best for sticking. Filament change pla to petg etc, always clean with dish soap.
Some models I always do with dish soap,to be 100 that it sticks.
Of course there is glue stick if needed.
Here you can see that 3d printing is not easy, you need to practice , and read forum for tips.
RE: Buyer's Question: Is a Prusa (mini) the right choice?
@peter-m
Thanks,
It is true I only have a year of 3D printing, building printers, modifying/compiling Marlin, and building electronics. I will definitely practice.
I have not had any issues with the mini bed adhesion. Jamming was the problem. I have found the mini much more problematic than the "cheaper ones" which I have modified greatly down to the motherboard and the structure. But even those never gave me this much trouble with or without modification. After 24 hours I had under extrusion issues and more jams than I can recall. I have also; checked the extruder repeatedly, cleaned the nozzle, performed multiple cold pulls, disassembled and adjusted the heat break adjusted the pinda, checked gcode settings..... After another day of failed prints and another all-nighter, it is printing again as of this morning. I hope it lasts. My understanding was that the mini was marketed as a "farm work horse" and my original hope was to purchase many to add to my farm. We will see.